Safe or vault



(No Model.)

W. H. HOLLAR. SAFE 0 R VAULT.

No. 459,226. Paten ted Sept. 8, 1891:

ilivrTEn STATES PATENT QFFICE.

'WILLIAM HENRY HOLLAR, OF PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA.

' SAFE OR VAULT.

SPECIFICATION forming part of Letters Patent No. 459,226, datedSeptember 8, 1891.

Application filed April 23, 1891.

To aZZ whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, WILLIAM HENRY HOL- LAR, a citizen of the UnitedStates of America, residing at Philadelphia, in' the county ofPhiladelphia and State of Pennsylvania, have invented certain new anduseful Improvements in Safes, of which the following is a specification.

My said invention is designed as a substi- Lute for the rubber and feltpackings heretofore commonly used in the rabbets or breaks of thetongues and grooves in doors of safes or Vaults. These packings are usedto make a tight joint and to prevent the introduction of any explosiveinto the safe or vault; but the rubber and felt are materials easilydestroyed and may be disintegrated or removed by the action of heat oracids, and thus access may be had to the interior of the safe or vault.

The object of myinvention is to provide an indestructible material orone which cannot be destroyed or removed by any known means under theconditions in which a door-packing exists in the ordinary constructionof the doors of safes or vaults.

My invention consists, essentially, in combining with the door and jambof a safe or vault a packing of soft metal. This metal may be purecopper, which I have found to be well suited to the purpose, it beingsufficiently soft and yielding to allow it to change its shape under thepressure exerted by the door of a vault or safe when it is forced to itsseat and capable of conforming both to the shape of the groove in whichit is placed and to that part of the face of the door which is broughtinto contact with it. At the same time it will retain the configurationand impressionimparted to it by the pressure of the door; but there areother metals or compositions of metals which may be used for thepurpose, and I do not limit myself in this respect. It is desirable,however, that if compositions of metals be used they should not have alow fusing-point.

The invention is illustrated in the accompanying drawings, in which---Figure 1 shows a front elevation of the doorway of the vault or safewith the door removed. Fig. 2 shows a horizontal section of Fig. 1 withthe door closed. Figs. 3, 4, and 5 show horizontal sections of a part ofthe Serial No. 390.193. (N0 model.)

jamb and a contiguous part of the door, showing the packing in diiferentforms.

In the drawings the door of the safe is represented at A. The ordinarytongues and grooves in the door and in the jamb are shown at a. Thepacking is shown at b. In the construction represented in Fig. 2 it islocated near the outer surface of the door at the intersection of thefirst offset; but the construction is more plainly shown in theillustrations of Figs. 3, 4, and 5, which are on a large scale.

In Fig. 3 the packing b is set into agroove at the bottom of the firstrabbet in the jamb. The corresponding face of the rabbeted edge of thedoor is provided withasharp rib cuear the edge of the door. It will beunderstood that the metal strip b is at first placed within the groove,with its outer face projecting beyond the face marked (Z of the rabbet,so that as the door is closed it will not at first permit thecorresponding face of the rabbeted edge of the door to bear against theface of the jamb,

the bearing of the door being at first upon the projecting face of thesoft-metal strip. The first impact would be that of the edge of the ribc, and as the metal packing is sufficiently soft to yield under theforce exerted upon the door it will cause the rib to sink into the softmetal, and the plane face of the rabbet upon the door will at the sametime crush down the plane face of the packing, so that the face of thedoor bearing upon the packing will fit itself upon the packing. Thisautomatically forms a bearing face or fit of the rabbeted surfacescaused by the pressure of the door. The packing, as is well understood,is in itself not new; but the ordinary packing, whether of felt orrubber or analogous substance, forms a close joint by reason of itselastic qualities, which causes it to press against the face of the doorbearing upon it, and these elastic qualities cause the packing when thepressure of the door is removed to regain to a greateror less extent theoriginal form of the packing, so that in case of rub her or felt thepart of the door which bears upon the packing must at each act ofclosing impress upon the packing its own form. The closeness andefficiency of the joint in the old kinds of packing heretofore referredto depend upon the elasticity of the packing itself,

and this varies according to the exposure or amount of use or length oftime; but with the metal packing of the nature above indicated theimpression made by the part of the door which comes in contact with thepacking is a permanent one, and this form imparted to it by a ssvagingimpression is necessarily exact.

In the form of grooves shown in Fig. 3 the bottom of the groove is madea little wider than the top of outer face, the side walls being slopedso as to give a large interior space, and this allows the packing toextend laterally under the pressure of the door, and thus fixes itpermanently in place. As the fit is caused by the swaging effect of thedoor, the joint is a tight one and forbids the introduction ofexplosives in any form.

In Fig. 4t I have shown a difierent form of packing, or rather adifferent form of groove, this being enlarged at the bottom by lateralundercutting, so that the soft metal is swaged out laterally at thebottom of the groove. The packing is also placed at the bottom of thegroove in the jamb instead of in a special groove made in the rabbetedface. The tongue upon the door (marked 6) is also provided with a seriesof sharp ribs V-shaped in cross-section, which when the door is pressedupon the packing impart to the packing a correspond ing configurationand leave thereon a permanentimpression of its own face, thus forming aperfectly close fit of one part upon the other automatically produced.Another packing of the same kind may be placed in the groove of the doorand the same ribbed construction be formed upon the tongue f of thejamb, thus forming a double packing, the. lateral parts of which arepressed to form lateral joints. Thus at the point 1 the packingin thegroove of the jamb presses against the tongue f of the jamb and thepacking in the door presses at 2 against the tongue of the door.

In the construction shown in Fig. 5 I have provided a plate of the samekind of soft metal shown at g. 'This is interposed as a layer in theconstruction of the wall, and is extended over one of the rabbetedfaces, as at h, so that the rabbeted face of the door at 1' and the sideof the tongue of the door at 70 bear against the soft packing. The formsgiven are deemed sufficient to indicate the construction of the packing.Manifestly a Very great number of special forms might be devised, allupon the same principle, and I do not limit myself in respect to thespecial forms. 7

It will be understood that in the use of packing in the doors of safesor vaults it is necessary to move the door a certain distance in or outin aright line before swinging it on its hinges. This is the ordinaryarrangement, and the door is forced tightly to its seat by variousapplications of cam movement placed across the door or in a verticalposition in suitable boxes on the frames. Such a construction issufficient to force the door upon its seat and to compress the packingwhen made of soft metal in accordance with my invention. I prefer,however, to use wormgearing in addition to the cam, so as to force thedoor inward, if need be, with a pressure to the extent of several tons.

I claim as my invention- In combination, the jamb, the door, and apacking of soft metal arranged. intermediate of the adjacent faces ofthe jainb and door to receive pressure therefrom and conforming to theshape of the parts when the door is closed, substantially as described.

In testimony whereof I affix my signature in presence of two witnesses.

WILLIAM HENRY HOLLAR.

Witnesses:

F. S. HOLMES, RIoHD. OADBURY.

